Courtesy photo
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Contributing Columnist
Anyone who has paid even the faintest attention to what’s happening on Los Angeles streets could hardly be surprised at the recent Los Angeles County report on street takeovers.
The street takeovers — where large crowds gather as motorists conduct stunts on public streets — may have been out of much of the news, but they are certainly not off the city and county streets. The recent county report on street takeovers confirmed that.
There were more of them than ever in the last three months of 2024. And they have shown no sign of slowing down so far in 2025.
It’s also no surprise that the hardest hit part of the county in takeover frequency was South Los Angeles. The number of takeovers in South L.A. dwarfed those in other county areas.
In past columns I have commented on them. The pattern is always the same. Hundreds of young and not so young people show up as usual. They engage in the usual dangerous street antics as usual.
They have free run of the streets for a fleeting period. There are no police in the vicinity during that period. There are no arrests or auto impounds.
The takeover thrill seeking has escalated to a level of danger that continues to heighten alarm among law enforcement and city and county officials. The fresh report on the continued frequency of street takeovers should heighten that alarm even more. They present an on-going clear and present danger.
Many residents, city officials and many in law enforcement continue to ask two crucial questions. The first is why street takeovers not only happen but seemingly have gotten bigger, bolder, and a direct challenge to the community and law enforcement than in the past? The second is what can be done about them?
There is no detailed profile of the typical street takeover participant or their motive for participating. From my observation, they are mostly young, comprised of all ethnicities and even genders, and treat the street takeover as part thrill, part happening, part sense of momentary empowerment and almost certainly part defiance of authority.
It is the thrill seeking taken to the extreme that is most troubling. It is almost as if the participants and watchers expect an accident, injury or, in extreme cases, death. Social media has made it simple for individuals to gather at a designated street corner at a designated time once the word goes out.
In the street takeovers I directly observed I was struck by how fast the crowd gathered at the location, and how fast they dispersed the moment the Los Angeles police of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies show up. That makes it more difficult for law enforcement to intervene with arrests and impounding of vehicles.
What is even more alarming in many of the street takeovers is there are no reports of arrests or auto impounds. These are at best minimal deterrents to busting up the takeovers, at least for that moment.
Street takeovers are certainly not new. Young people and car enthusiasts have had a long tradition in Los Angeles of commandeering a street and showcasing their souped-up vehicles in showboat promenades and Riverside 500-type speed racing, stunts and reckless driving displays.
The one other factor that helps to understand why street takeovers have cropped up to be the new sport of thrill seeking is the cultural dynamic. Once a deviant act is embraced by numbers of in this case bored, alienated, and rootless young persons, it takes on a dynamic of its own and becomes embedded in the subculture. That ensures that hundreds of people will quickly embrace the call to show up at a location for the action.
The measures to combat takeovers include tougher sentences for those arrested, the permanent impounding of vehicles, stiff fines, imploring community residents to promptly report a street takeover, and reconfiguring street corners with barriers and speed prevention bumps. Those measures have had varying degrees of success particularly in areas outside of South L.A.
A swift, tough, proactive early warning crackdown is the best answer to those who think city streets are a soft target for wreaking their dangerous, and offensive brand of vehicle and community mayhem. The latest L.A. County report on the escalation in street takeovers is yet another warning for officials and law enforcement to take over the takeovers.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is “The Musk DOGE Fraud” (Middle Passage Press).
